The government has just yesterday announced an aerospace sector deal as part of their industrial strategy. This deal looks to build on the UK’s success in the sector by positioning the UK to take advantage of the global move towards hybrid-electric and electric propulsion and to exploit related new markets – drones and Urban Air Mobility vehicles.

Chris Hayhurst, European Consultant Manager, MathWorks comments:

“It is fantastic to see the UK Government call for more collaboration between the aerospace industry and education providers to guarantee we have the talent available to be competitive in the worldwide market.

We already know the country has an engineering skill gap with EngineeringUK predicting an annual shortfall of 69,000 skilled employees. Taking into account people retiring or leaving the profession, we will need over a million new engineers a year to ensure growth within the industry.

It is critical that our universities are developing and producing the engineers the aerospace sector will need in the future. This can only be effective if universities and industry work together to innovate on how the subject is taught and student engineers graduate with skills, creativity and enthusiasm.”